Read Online The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd - Free Book Online Page A

tiny glade while the animal cropped the grass. The sound of a herd of deer suddenly crashing through the undergrowth somewhere ahead had woken her from her reverie. Curious, she had quickly mounted and trotted forward to see what had disturbed them. Coming out abruptly on to open ground, and seeing a figure she thought she recognized ahead, she cantered towards him, hardly thinking what she was doing. He turned. She saw. And it was already too late.
    ‘Good day, Godwin Pride,’ she said.
    Pride stared. Just for once, he lost his usual composure. His mouth sagged open. He couldn’t believe it: how could he have failed to hear her coming? It had only taken him a few moments to run across the open ground and a few more to hoist the fallen doe on to his shoulders. Obviously it had been long enough. The bad luck of the thing was past belief.
    And, of all people, this girl. A Norman. Worse still, all the Forest knew she had been riding out with Edgar.
    Worst of all, he was caught, as the forest law termed it, ‘red-handed’: the deer and its blood on his hands. There was no escape. He was for it. Mutilation: they’d cut off one of his limbs. They might even hang him. You couldn’t be sure.
    He glanced about. They were alone. Just for a moment he wondered if he should kill her. But he put the thought outof his mind. The doe slipped from his back as he stood up straight, brave as a lion before her. If he was frightened at facing death he wasn’t going to show it.
    And then he thought of his family. What were they going to do if he swung? Suddenly they came before his mind’s eye: the four children, his daughter only three, his wife, and the bitter words she would say. She’d be right. How could he explain it to his children? He could hear his own voice. ‘I did a foolish thing.’ Without even realizing he was doing it, he gave a short gasp.
    But what could he do? Plead with this Norman girl? Why should she help him? She’d be bound to tell Edgar.
    ‘A fine day, isn’t it?’
    He blinked. What was she saying?
    ‘I rode out early this morning,’ she went on calmly. ‘I hadn’t meant to come so far, but the weather was so good. I suppose if I go that way’ – she pointed – ‘I should get to Brockenhurst.’
    He nodded, slightly bemused. She was talking on, as though there were nothing the matter in the world. What the devil was she at?
    And then he got the message.
She had not looked at the deer
.
    She was looking straight at his face. Dear God, she was asking after his children. He tried to mumble some reply.
She had not seen the deer
. Now he comprehended: she was chattering quietly on so that he would understand clearly. There was to be no complicity, no shared guilt, no embarrassment, no favours owed – she was too clever for that. She was better than that.
The deer did not exist
.
    She went on a little more, asked him the best route by which she should return and, still without a single glance at the deer on the ground in front of her, she announced: ‘Well, Godwin Pride, I must be on my way.’ Then she turned the horse’s head and with a wave of her hand she was gone.
    Pride took a deep breath.
    Now that, he considered, was style.
    Moments later, the deer was safely hidden and he was ready to go home. As he started off one further thought occurred to him and he smiled a little grimly.
    Just as well, he mused, it wasn’t the pale doe he had shot.
    Adela was surprised, returning in the evening to Christchurch, to find Walter Tyrrell crossly awaiting her.
    ‘If you hadn’t come back so late, we could have left today,’ he rebuked her. The fact that she had no idea he was arriving did not seem to matter. ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing. Be ready,’ he ordered.
    ‘But where are we going?’ she asked.
    ‘To Winchester,’ he informed her, as though it were obvious.
    Winchester. At last – a place of real importance. There would be royal officials there, knights, people of consequence.
    ‘Except’,